


The Difference Between Shooting Stars and Satellites

by drosophilase



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drosophilase/pseuds/drosophilase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working title: Some attractive assholes decorate a tissue box and Chris can’t un-notice Darren’s eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Between Shooting Stars and Satellites

Chris is just getting comfortable, trying to write a particularly tricky chapter for the third time that day, when there’s a knock at his trailer door.

With a glance at the time in the corner of his computer screen and four more insistent, rhythmic knocks, Chris has a pretty good suspicion of who it is.  He sighs a little, though fondly, pulling his glasses off and folding them next to his laptop to go for the door.

“Hi, Darren,” he greets the ball of energy bouncing on his toes outside his door.  Chris tries to look annoyed but his stupid lips refuse to comply, instead curling and twisting in that way that only Darren seems to influence.

He can tell Darren notices too by the way the corner of his eyes crinkle just a bit more, the way his smile overtakes his face.  A fluttery kind of heat fills Chris up and radiates all the way to his fingers and toes.

“Hi, Chris,” Darren says finally, and they kind of stare at each other for a second before Chris remembers that there are other things in the world besides Darren’s bright, bright eyes and tugs him by the wrist inside his trailer.

Chris falls back onto the couch and pulls his laptop back into his lap, resettling his glasses on the bridge of his nose.  After a second, he pauses and looks up to find Darren hasn’t moved from the doorway.

He quirks an eyebrow, and Darren just looks, bright eyes wide and beseeching.  Chris finally sighs and moves his laptop and glasses aside once again, patting the couch cushion next to his in resolution.

Darren  _sprints_  across the room and launches himself to Chris’s side, and Chris can’t help the peal of loud, happy laughter that bubbles out of him.  Darren snuggles in, wrapping both arms around his waist, one ankle firmly hooking one of Chris’s and nose nuzzling the sleeve of his tee shirt.

“Hi,” Chris says again, murmured into Darren’s hair this time, wonderfully soft curls that haven’t yet been slicked down due to Blaine’s gel travesty.

“Hi,” he replies just as softly, and when Darren’s lips brush his bare arm, Chris can barely hold back the shiver of heady affection that runs through him.

Chris tries not to, but his resolve is shot and he can’t hold back anymore from running his fingers through Darren’s dark, soft hair. He doesn’t get to see enough of it in its gel-free state and it’s irresistible.  Darren positively  _mewls_ and wiggles even closer, turning his entire body to curve into Chris’s side.  After a second, Chris settles his other hand on his knee and Darren pushes into the touch, finally settling down into the soft cushions.

They sit together, the late afternoon sun slanting in through the blinds and a sort of deep, quiet calm settling over everything.  Chris doesn’t stop running his fingers through Darren’s hair, and in turn, Darren hums and snuffles and wipes his nose a little on his shirt, but Chris doesn’t mind.

Chris sneaks glances at the time on his phone, hitting the button with his toe and cursing the numbers displayed.  Each time it gets closer to call time he gives himself five more minutes, two more minutes, one more minute…

“Darren,” Chris finally says, and even though it’s barely a sound, it cuts through the hazy silence unpleasantly.  An answering grunt comes, but Darren doesn’t move from where he’s clinging to Chris’s side.  It’s sweet, but they have to be at hair and makeup in two minutes and Chris has run out of excuses to stall.

“Darren, we have to be all the way across set in one hundred and twenty seconds,” Chris insists, poking at Darren’s ribs.

“That means we have one hundred seconds to sit here,” Darren shoots back, his voice muffled in Chris’s shirt, the vibrations from the murmur hitting him square in the chest.  Chris almost relents, knowing they can’t start filming the scene without them anyway, until he can hear voices outside.

_“Has anyone seen Darren?  Where’s Colfer?”_

Darren groans, hearing it too, and finally starts to unlatch himself from Chris’s side.  It’s startlingly cold without him and Chris has to fight the urge to pull him right back in.  Darren’s eyes are sleepy and his hair is sticking up in every direction and he’s  _adorable_.  Chris wants so badly to lean down and kiss him, but he hesitates and then the moment’s gone.

“Duty calls,” Chris intones to cover his indecision, standing up to plug his laptop back to the charger and grab his phone.  When he turns around, Darren’s eyes are clear and so, so green and Chris is suddenly gasping for air.

“What are you doing Friday night?”  And wow, Chris really  _does_  have to tell himself to breathe.

“The usual: spending the night with the positively  _raucous_  company of my laptop and my cat,” he quips.  “Why?” 

It slips out without his permission, but there it is, an invitation for Darren to put words to what Chris can’t.  This  _something_  that’s happening between them is earth-shatteringly big and also small and simple, just little increments that kept stacking and clicking together so that he couldn’t tell how the puzzle was going to form until he got it all together and then… there it was. 

When Darren showed up at his door four days before and Chris fully noticed for the first time how much light was in his eyes, the last piece fit in.  The constant need to be physically next to each other and the phantom limb feeling when they weren’t, the way he couldn’t seem to stop mentioning Darren and Darren couldn’t keep his name out of his mouth either, the little touches and the too-long pauses and the  _looking_ , all the looks— suddenly, Chris saw the whole picture.

Darren’s smile is mischievous as he considers Chris’s question, and the ache to kiss him is so strong now that Chris has to fiddle with his hands just to have something to do.

“I’m coming over.”  Chris snaps his head up to meet Darren’s eyes and he can  _feel_ his eyebrows shoot up but Darren just smiles bigger.  “We’ve got a tissue box to decorate.”

Chris can’t decide whether to groan or laugh or be excited or sad or  _what_.  “Wait… Ryan actually went for it?”

Darren’s bouncing again, obviously so pleased with himself.  “Yep.  Said it was _inspired_ , actually, if I remember right.”

“And I’m sure you do,” Chris adds with an eyeroll, laughing in spite of himself.  Darren is just  _so damn proud_  of his idea and it’s so endearing Chris has to look away and hide his smile behind his hand.

When he gets himself under control Darren is suddenly right there in his space, eyes so close that Chris can almost pick out every color in them, though he couldn’t name most. 

“I remember a lot of things,” Darren says quietly, and Chris leans in without thinking too much for once, because Darren’s so  _Darren,_  all excited and smug with lips so thoroughly kissable and  _right there_.  He closes his eyes.

Their lips touch and it’s a rush of familiarity and pleasant strangeness all at once, something Chris is more than willing to explore, a gentle press of lips that if he just angles right and pushes a little more can turn into—

A pounding knock on Chris’s trailer door spooks him and he jumps back, barely getting a glance of Darren’s unreadable face, pretty eyes so wide, when someone busts in the door.

“If you guys don’t get to hair and makeup  _five minutes ago_  Ryan’s going to have your  _heads_ —”  Lea stops and Chris looks anywhere but at Darren, busying himself with patting his pockets and looking around for his phone even though he knows exactly where he left it.

He makes a big show of finding it and then he can’t avoid her any longer.  She’s clearly scheming, a look of wonder and a little understanding and Chris has to get out of there.

“Thanks, Lea,” Chris says dismissively, walking to the door so she has no choice but to walk back out.  She still looks curious but doesn’t say anything, walking a little ahead of him to hair and makeup for their night shoot.

Chris finally breathes easy, confident that this can be just between him and Darren for a little while longer.  Like a reflex he can’t help but touch his lips, the number of times he and Darren have kissed still countable on just one hand but each one so vivid, distinct.  First, the kiss on the Dublin stage that had been one rather large piece of the puzzle, then the soft, questioning one when Darren came to his house that turned into a firmer, answering one, and now the perfectly open-ended kiss in his trailer that made him want  _more_.

They barely get five steps when Darren comes out of Chris’s trailer.

“So, Chris, we’re on for Friday, then?”

Lea shrieks a little, and Chris whips around with a comeback on the tip of his tongue, but isn’t Darren just so predictably, heartbreakingly  _handsome_  that it dies in his throat.

_“Asshole,”_  Chris hisses, and his last glimpse of Darren, unfairly gorgeous with his head thrown back in laughter, carries him all the way through to set.

—-

Darren makes good on his promise, just like Chris knew he would, showing up at Chris’s door juggling some kind of take-out, a mysterious brown bag, and a huge bottle of wine.

“Really, Darren?  Wine?” is all Chris can find to say in the jumble of  _Darren, Darren, beautiful Darren_  in his head.

“I’m a classy motherfucker,” Darren pouts, and Chris rolls his eyes, grabs the surprisingly heavy paper bag, and turns around to hide his smile.

Like Chris intended, Darren takes it as an invitation to come in, and when the door thumps closed, Chris panics a little with how alone they are.  Just the two of them.  Together.

It’s not like the last time, when there was uncertainty and timidness and fear of rejection.  Now Chris knows, and Darren knows, and Chris knows Darren knows, and the weight of  _knowing_  feels all at once too-much and not-enough. 

“I don’t even think I own any wine glasses,” Chris tries to talk through the sudden quiet, taking his time to place the bag just so on the counter and trying to breathe normally.

He turns finally and as usual, Darren’s in his personal space, this time stretching on his tiptoes to open the cabinet just to the left of Chris’s head.  Chris holds his breath and he can count every one of Darren’s stupid eyelashes and he smells so good he just wants to  _lick_  him and then Darren pulls away, two red Solo cups in his hand.

“Darren, I may not have wine glasses, but I do have glassware.”  Darren just smiles, going through drawers until he finds Chris’s corkscrew and getting to work on the wine.

“I don’t even know why I have Solo cups,” Chris keeps talking, getting a little concerned at Darren’s weird  _lack of words_. “I’m sure it’s thanks to Chord and his fratboy-wannabe drinking habits, and—”

Darren shoves a cup half-full of white wine into Chris’s hand and he stops babbling because Darren’s arms are around his waist, pulling him in.  Chris rests his wrists on Darren’s shoulders and there’s a cup pressed into his lower back and  _oh_.  Chris remembers, a loud party on a lawn in May with all his friends and too much tequila, a stolen moment hidden behind a garden shed and Darren’s arms and eyelashes and lips, oh god his  _lips_ , warm and sour and salty all at once.

“Oh,” Chris says out loud, to show Darren he knows, and he wonders if that kiss is on the list, if it’s one that counts.  Was it just part of the build up or was that the first step?  Should Chris have known then?

“I remember a lot of things,” Darren says again, his voice low and smile threatening to burst, and Chris wonders happily if this is a  _thing_ , if memories will always get him kisses.  For now he’s 2 for 2 as Darren leans in, sloshing wine in cups with the force of his lips on Chris’s.

Chris cups the back of his head, fingers scratching and sliding through silky hair and Darren grips his waist tighter, angling just like Chris was aching for earlier.  There’s no one to interrupt them now, no directors or friends or call times, and Chris relishes in it, sliding, sucking lips and fingertip pressure and that dense perfect haze of good and right and  _finally_.

He’s breathless and shaking from the inside out but Chris is desperate for his first taste of Darren’s tongue, not Darren-as-Blaine’s tongue but  _Darren’s tongue_ , when Darren suddenly hisses and breaks the embrace.  Chris is confused and on his way to hurt when his eyes snap open and he falls back into actual body awareness and has to right the cup he had forgotten was in his hand.

“Darren, oh my god, I’m so sorry,” he says quickly, setting the culprit safely out of the way on the counter, jumping around him to inspect the damage.  There’s a darkened streak of wine from his collar to mid-back, but luckily, it’s a white wine and a dark shirt.  “I didn’t even  _notice,_  I—”

Darren laughs, putting his own cup next to Chris’s and pulling him in again.  One, two, three little kisses and one long, pulling, searching one and Chris has found his new favorite way to be silenced.  He’s just relaxing in again when Darren pulls away, softly this time, leaving the sweetest peck to the corner of his mouth.

His eyes are so soft when he says, “As much as I want to keep doing this, and believe me, I  _do_ , wine is much less pleasant down my back than down my throat.”

Chris can’t help but be a little frustrated, no matter how sweet the kiss, because there’s something else he wanted  _down Darren’s throat_  but then Darren’s lifting his arms and stripping off his shirt and oh, okay.  He can work with this.

“I’ll, uh,” Chris tries, and it’s more breath than word and he has to stop and try again.   “I’ll just, put that in the wash for you.  You can, um, borrow one of my shirts if you want.”

Darren’s eyes light up, no doubt with the permission to go into Chris’s room, and Chris just laughs, taking the shirt from him.  He feels bold, suddenly, a full-on kissing headrush and all that perfect skin urging him on, and he leans in for one last little kiss.

Darren has other plans, though, reaching up to put  _his_  hands in  _Chris’s_  hair this time, and his gentle searching fingers fill his ears and brain and chest with a fluffy sort of buzz that he never wants to go away.  Chris wants it to go on forever, but he remembers the shirt in his hand and then that means Darren _doesn’t have a shirt on_  and he kind of panics again, tries to ease away.

Darren’s not having any of it, though, pulling him back close with one hand on his shoulder and one tugging the roots of his hair and Chris gasps at the dizzying rush of pleasure and want.  It wasn’t what he intended but Darren takes the opportunity anyway and there it is at last—the soft, wet slick of Darren’s tongueagainst his own.  At first, he’s paralyzed with surprise and disbelief and Darren retreats a little, but the brush of a foreign tongue over Chris’s teeth brings him back to  _yes, oh yes, please_.

He reaches for Darren, to anchor himself, and all he finds is skin so warm and smooth and _maddening_.  Unhooking himself from rational thought again, unable to resist, he runs his palms up his arms, over his shoulder blades, down his chest, smoothes across his stomach and then it’s  _Darren_  gasping and trembling open and who is Chris to pass up such an opportunity?

Licking into Darren’s mouth is like the most vivid of sense memories, the floodgates of images and carefully categorized feelings opened wide and Chris can’t breathe from the weight of it, clinging to Darren’s sharp hipbones to try and stay in the moment.  There’s an onslaught of thousands of stolen moments he’s held so close to his heart, words and glances that meant as much as words and all the times he stopped himself from what his mind was screaming for him to do.  Darren’s groaning and humming like Chris is giving him the world with just his tongue and Chris is clinging to him like a boat to dock, riding out the outpouring of everything he’s held back for so long and translating it right back into Darren’s mouth.

It’s the sweetest release, bringing out every bit of love he dutifully filed away and left to collect dust, shining it up and gifting it back to the source with just the movement of his lips.  Chris presses close and pulls away in turn, harder kisses and then softer, firm thrusts and little licks, working to tell Darren in the only language he can how long he’s been  _dying_  for this.  How much it means that he has it now.

Darren takes, cradling Chris’s head and letting him kiss, letting him give and receiving it willingly.

Eventually, it slows, the tidal wave ebbing to a gentle flow, the rush of imagery narrowing down to this moment, to this touch, to this kiss.  An eternity later, he finally pulls back, almost scared to see the change in Darren’s eyes but so drained and liberated and relieved in the best way.

His eyes are brighter than Chris has ever seen, kind of soft and shiny with tears and full of emotion and Chris smiles because now he’s not afraid.  Darren surges in to connect their lips again, answering with his own deep kiss.  His eyelashes tickle his cheek and Chris exhales long and slow because it isn’t just him anymore, it’s them.  It’s not just in his head and it’s not just something he refuses to let himself think about.  It’s happening and it’s wonderful and it’s  _them_.

Chris release his death grip on Darren’s hips, and Darren gasps a little at the slide of skin on skin.  He answers Chris’s raised eyebrow with an embarrassed smile and an “Uh, I probably should find that shirt.”

Letting him go, Chris picks up the wine-stained shirt he dropped and only half-watches Darren climb the stairs.

“It’s okay if you check out my ass,” Darren calls and Chris groans, hurrying to the laundry room before he completely embarrasses himself.

—-

Four cartons of Chinese food, one blaring Pandora playlist, and half a bottle of wine later, they’ve ruined two tissue boxes beyond saving and are well on their way to a third.

“No,  _Darren_ , you can’t just draw hearts and bow ties and expect that to be worth thousands of dollars!”

Darren looks affronted.  “Wow,  _ouch_  Chris.  Let’s see you do better!”

Chris rolls his eyes.  “I  _did_  do better, on the first and the second one until you got a hold of them and turned my perfectly mediocre Pavarotti into a black blob.”

“I was adding  _flair_ , Chris, and I’m sorry you can’t appreciate that.”

“Flair that ruined that tissue box, and the next one, and now this one too.”

Darren looks almost repentant as he sighs, resigned that Chris is telling the truth, and pitches it into the trash to join the other two boxes.  Chris refills their cups that he didn’t have the heart to exchange for real glasses, smiling at the dents where Darren crushed his own cup against the skin of Chris’s lower back.

“Okay, this is the last one I bought, so we can’t afford to fuck this up,” Darren says helpfully, pulling it out of his brown bag.   _It’s my crafting stuff,_ he had explained when Chris asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Yes, exactly like we said about the other three,” Chris adds, picking up the box to inspect it closer.  It’s square, sides smooth and kind of a garish purple and blue pattern. “Now, how exactly are we going to go about this?”

“Mod Podge,” Darren says, pulling a jar out of his brown bag that’s labeled as such.

“But isn’t that… Darren, did you  _make your own Mod Podge?_ ”

He looks almost  _insulted_ , cradling the Mason jar close to his chest.  “A crafter never reveals his secrets, Chris Colfer.”

“That’s a magician, Darren.”

“Point still stands,” he responds, putting the jar down to dig out white paper from the bag.  “Basically we slap this stuff on the box and then the paper sticks to it and it’ll dry and then we have a beautiful blank canvas.”

Chris picks up the jar and tips it, watching the white liquid slide down the glass.  “So, this can make any paper stick to the box?”

Darren nods.  “Yeah, I mean, if it’s made from wood pulp, it’s a go.”

“What the winner of this box is really going to want is Kurt and Blaine.  And not just our half-assed interpretations of them, which is  _nice_ ,” he chokes a little on the word, remembering their failed attempts in the trash can, “but not worth a thousand dollars.”

He still looks a little injured over Chris’s criticism of his art skills, but Darren’s listening.

“What if we did our favorite pictures of Kurt and Blaine from the show?  We could do the first kiss and the first ‘I love you’, and then there’s Margaret Thatcher dog, and of course the Juicy Fruit ring, and—” Darren pulls Chris’s face to him and he stops talking, his lips otherwise occupied with Darren’s.  His surprised  _mmph!_  at the collision of mouths melts into Darren’s happy hum and Chris can feel his face heating up just a little because this is something they can do now.  Darren can kiss him just because and Chris can kiss him just because, and Chris  _always_  wants to kiss him, so really it’s a win/win situation.

Their lips part with a satisfying smack as Darren pulls away, smiling like Chris just discovered a new element or something.

“That is an  _awesome_  idea.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Because you’re way smarter than me, that’s why.”

“Obviously,” Chris replies coolly, but he’s  _really_  blushing now, pulling his laptop forward to find the pictures they need and also conveniently hiding his flushed face.  “Thank god for Google.”

He sends each one to his wireless printer, along with Kurt’s red-and-yellow bouquet and the skylight at Dalton.  Darren suggests the stills from the scene where Blaine tells Kurt to tone it down after the  _Don’t Cry for me Argentina_ debacle, and Chris raises an eyebrow at that one.  “You just look really, really gorgeous in that one,” Darren mumbles finally, and with a happy kiss, Chris prints it out, too.

Darren’s been mostly quiet while Chris picks out pictures, fumbling with his phone.  Chris is more than happy to lead the operation so that they don’t mess up yet another tissue box, but then Darren asks to look up a picture.

“Make sure you get the highest quality.  I mean, I could just do it, you know,” Chris says, but relents the laptop to him anyway.  “I’m probably a better Googler than you.”

Darren sticks out his tongue at Chris and starts typing, and after a minute or two Chris can hear the printer in the other room churn out another sheet.

“I think we have enough now, don’t you think?” Darren says, getting up to retrieve the pages.  Chris pulls the laptop back curiously, but Darren’s already closed whatever site he was on.

Shrugging to himself, Chris finds the scissors in Darren’s Mary Poppins brown bag and starts designing the box in his head.  He may have to channel a bit of Kurt Hummel, but with a little luck they can make a pretty decent memento for a fan.

Darren comes back clutching a sheaf of paper and they sit together cutting out the pictures, starting with the big ones to cover up the awful patterned cardboard and trimming others closer to spotlight the symbolic things, like Pavarotti in his cage and the Dalton crest.  Chris spreads the goopy white Mod Podge over the cardboard with a paintbrush, following Darren’s instructions on smoothing out the air bubbles and letting each cutout dry before adding more around it. 

It  _is_  kind of like magic, the way the box turns from boring to a bit of a creepy love shrine, if not a work of art.  It’s not perfect— some gaps show the awful pattern beneath, there’s a few stubborn bubbles, and Darren nearly cut his own head off the wide shot of  _Teenage Dream,_  but with a little tape and some patience Chris can barely tell.  No, it’s not perfect, but it’s theirs.

He’s adding in the little accents, a Dalton tie between two bigger pictures and Kurt’s Prom Queen crown floating above the heads of the Warblers, when Darren finishes cutting out the last picture.  Chris’s breath catches and he looks from the unassuming piece of paper to Darren, then back.

“This isn’t a Klaine picture, Darren,” Chris says carefully, picking it up with the hand not covered in half-dried Mod Podge.

“I know,” Darren replies quietly.  “I sent it from my phone.”

It’s just them in the picture, Darren facing Chris while he’s facing forward.  From the background, it’s clear they’re on the set, a part of the choir room taking up the right side.  Chris can almost pinpoint the moment from Kurt’s outfit alone— it was downtime while filming the first episode when Chord had been showing off his latest impression (Mitt Romney) to anyone who would listen.  Vanessa had stolen Darren’s phone though he didn’t put up much of a fight, letting her play with it.  And then… this must have happened.

It was probably right after Chord’s perfectly imitated line about corporations being people, because even now Chris still giggles at the memory.  In the picture, Chris is blurred a little, one hand covering his mouth, hunched forward and body angled toward Darren.  From the blurs of what looks like Jenna and Kevin at the edge of the shot, they’re all in the throes of laughter. 

Just off-center, though, Darren is perfectly clear, stock-still amongst the chaos.  His body is almost completely turned to Chris and he’s looking at him too, eyes sparkling so bright and almost like… like Chris held the answer to absolutely everything.

Chris looks up from the picture, and the real live Darren is wearing the same look.  He needs to say something now and opens his mouth, but he can’t find the words.  Darren takes his hand.

“That’s when—” Darren starts and has to pause, to swallow. “When I saw this picture, that’s when I knew.  Vanessa set it as my lock screen and when I got it back from her I didn’t get to look at it until after we were done.  And then it just… it hit me like a ton of fucking bricks, Chris.”

Chris can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t hope until he says it, immobile with that last nagging doubt, the last bit of insecurity.

“I love you, Chris.”  And it’s like coming up for air, like crossing the finish line… like finishing a puzzle.  Finished, whole,  _won_.  “I think I might have loved you for a really long time now.  And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”

Chris folds their clasped hands close to his heart, brings his other up to Darren’s face.  There’s so much hope there, with a touch of nervousness that fills Chris’s heart to bursting.  He kisses Darren, letting his lips tell Darren the truth while he works up the nerve to say it with words. 

When they break apart, it’s slowly, reluctantly.  Darren’s face is lit up like the sun itself and Chris can’t imagine saying anything else.

“And I love you, Darren.”


End file.
